waruku ngurra, waruku kuwiyi Martu people, hun3ng and fire in the western desert Rebecca Bliege Bird, Nyalangka Taylor, Douglas W. Bird, Cur:s Taylor, Brian F. Codding, Fiona Walsh © 2014 Martu Ecological Anthropology Project Citation: Bliege Bird, Rebecca., Nyanlangka Taylor, Douglas W. Bird, Brian F. Codding, Curtis Taylor, and Fiona Walsh (2014) Waruku ngurra, waruku kuwiyi: Martu people, hunting, and fire in the Western Desert, 2000-2010. Unpublished resource. Rebecca Bliege Bird and Douglas W. Bird, Stanford University, USA Jurtujarra (sisters-in-law) hunting near Punmu head down a dune to continue hunting in a Nyalangka Taylor and Curtis Taylor, Parnngurr Aboriginal Community, Aus- burn lit earlier in the day, July 2007. tralia Brian F. Codding, University of Utah, USA Warning: This booklet may contain images and ref- Fiona Walsh, CSIRO, Alice Springs, Australia erences to some people that are deceased. There may also be yumari on these pages. Please be sen- Cover photo: Nyalangka Taylor lights a fire line in preparation to hunt for sitive to those kin that may feel kurnta in seeing or sand goanna near Parnngurr in July, 2005. hearing about these individuals. i PREFACE A hunting fire is lit to clear off a patch of old growth spinifex grass, near Parnngurr Aborigi- nal Community, July 2010. This is the story of the research we have been doing since 2000 So many families helped to put this research together, that we can- when we first started working with Martu, the Traditional Owners of a not name them all here. Parnngurr, Punmu, Kunawarritji families, this large region of Australia’s Western Desert. It was funded by Stanford is our project together. It was your idea, and your work, together with University’s Woods Institute for the Environment, the Leakey Founda- our work and our analysis that made this a story that belongs to all tion, and the United States National Science Foundation, with sup- of us. You know all of this story already -- we just put it to English port from CSIRO, Rangelands NRM (especially Peter See), Martumili words and numbers to tell kartiya the proper story of how Martu live Artists, and Kanyirninpa Jukurrpa (the Martu Cultural Knowledge Pro- and how important they are to the health of their country. ject, especially Peter Johnson and Sue Davenport). Neil Burrows It is also important that we thank our dear friends Gabrielle Sullivan, from the Department of the Environment and Conservation has pro- Bob and Myrna Tonkinson, Peter Veth, Jo McDonanald, and Brooke vided tremendous advice and assistance over many years, David Scelza, all of whom have worked with Martu for many years. Without Zeanah from California State University Sacramentao has helped col- them, combined with the kindness and tolerance of all of the Manyjil- lect a good deal of the data we discuss here, and Eric Smith from jarra, Warnman, and Kartujarra families, we would never have had University of Washington and Chris Parker at University of Utah were the opportunity to become walytja. fundamentally instrumental in getting this project up and running. ii We first came to Martu country with the hope of being able to partici- also creates more patches of manguu and kunarka (late stages of pate with people during regular hunting and gathering activities plant regrowth), which provide important homes for parnajarlpa and (what we will call ‘foraging’). We were really interested in the things other small animals. Without Martu hunting and fire there may be that influence decisions about foraging and how those decisions fewer of the animals that sustain people, fewer homes for small ani- shape the patterns of plants and animals on the land. We also mals, and less food for kirti-kirti and kipara. Without Martu making hoped that this information could be used by the Martu community in such things as their Native Title Land Claim (which was granted in 2002), and in working out policy to care for country according to Martu values. We have been so lucky to have been invited by Martu to continue to work and live with them over all of these years. Now we are always homesick when we are not in Parnngurr. This booklet describes how and why Martu hunt and burn country, tilila ngurra. It shows how country is different when Martu burn, com- pared to country that is not being looked after. It shows how Martu benefit from a properly burnt country, and how fire affects the plants and animals that are important to support life in the desert. Much of this research has been published elsewhere: we intend this booklet mostly for Martu and those that support them in the communities. Parnngurr community in 2010, looking toward the south. Today, many Martu live in three remote communities, Parnngurr, Punmu, and Kunawarritji. Most of our research was done in Parnn- gurr and Punmu, although we hunted and became family with many people who call Kunawarritji their ngurra. Our research has shown that Martu people belong to the country, and in nganinpa (gathering) and wartilpa (hunting), Martu kanyin- inpa ngurrara (hold country), and in so doing, kanyininpa jukurrpa (hold the law) and kanyininpa walytja (hold family). Through hunting, there is more of the food people and other animals need to eat to sur- vive and feed their families. Hunting with fire makes nyurnma, waru- waru, and nyukura, different stages of the plants that regrow after a fire that supply jinjiwirrily (desert raisin) and warmula (bush tomato), food for Martu, kirti-kirti (hill kangaroo), parnajarlpa (sand monitor, aka goanna) and kipara (bustard, aka bush turkey). Martu burning Punmu community in 2010, looking toward the west. iii nyurnma (a new burn), rain and lightning cause big fires which can kill many animals in one sweep. But hunting not only sustains the country, it sustains the people, and not just because it feeds people. Hunting also sustains networks of walytja kinship and family, the relationships that make possible the reproduction of life. Burning, sharing, hunting, family, country, men, women, ju- kurr: everything is linked together. This booklet tries to tell that story. Above is a photo of the authors with residents of Parnngurr and Punmu, along with Native American stu- dents from Stanford University, at Kurta-Kurta in Karlamilyi NP, Sep- tember 2009. Below left: Nyalangka Taylor (fore), and from left, Ivy Bidu, Nga- muru Bidu, and Nyeri Morgan pre- paring parnajarlpa (sand goanna) at a dinner-time camp near Parnn- gurr, June 2010. Below right: the patchy mosaic of vegetation created by Martu fires is clearly visible (from the mail plane) across the dunes south of Punmu, August 2010. iv STRELLEY Great Sandy Desert MARBLE BAR Percival Lakes The Pilbara NULLAGINE Great Sandy Desert PUNMU Lake Dora KUNAWARRITJI oute R k to c g S in n Balfour Downs n PARNNGURR a C na T Ethel Creek Talawa rack Little Sandy Desert JIGALONG NEWMAN Lake CAPRICORN Disappointment MARTU COMMUNITY Primary road Martu Native Title Lands OTHER COMMUNITY Maintained track Karlamily National Park Station Unmaintained track Salt playa Desert watercourse v CHAPTER 1 NGURRA (HOME COUNTRY) The track to Parnngurr from Karlamilyi, looking south to Nyukuwarta, 2007. NGURRA-KARTI: COMING HOME TO MARTU COUNTRY The journey to Parnngurr begins with a 1700 km trip north from Perth the three and a half billion year old banded iron of the Pilbara cra- on the Great Northern Highway, the most remote highway in the ton. world. There are three small villages in the first 300 km: New Norcia, Soon you head east on the Jigalong road, leaving the bitumen be- Dalwallinu, and Wubin. Between Wubin and Mt Magnet 300 km far- hind, passing through aeolian sand, dominated by endless stretches ther, there is the roadhouse at Payne’s Find. Next comes the tiny lo- of spiny spinifex hummocks. Spinifex (here, mainly Triodia basedowii calities of Mt. Magnet, Cue and Meekatharra. For the 360 kilometers and T. pungens) is well-adapted to the low-nitrogen, low- between Meekatharra and Capricorn, there is only the Kumarina phosphorus, and iron-rich sandy soils of this part of the arid zone. Roadhouse, inhabited by a crotchety old cockatoo that ubiquitously Just before the Fortescue River crossing, you pass Ethel Creek Sta- inquires, “Have a scratch?” Just past the Capricorn roadhouse and tion, and a Martu campsite from a few years ago where once the sta- before you get to Newman, you take the old graded route of the high- tion owner threatened to shoot a camp dog puppy and two Chihua- way, which passes through the Fortescue River gap in the Op- huas. Where the sand gives way to more clay-like colluvium, dense thalmia ranges. Exposed here are some of the oldest rocks on earth: woodlands of wintamarra (mulga, Acacia aneura) roll past, good places to get mata (the bush potato, Ipomoea costata) or wuukarta 7 (honey ants, Camponotus inflatus). The woodlands also support extensive populations of marlu (plains kangaroo, Macropus rufus), who feed unconcernedly amongst the cattle. The patchy mosaic of of mulga, spinifex, and large expanses of open ground is a function of local geomorphology: spinifex dominates the aeo- lian sands, mulga the clay-like colluvium, and fine, ironstone peb- bles create a stony gibber plain that discourages nearly all plant growth. These deflated areas are the result of slow erosion with little deposition, revealing a desert pavement that exposes small rocks too heavy to blow away, as well as thousands of years of accumulation of chipped stone and tools discarded by people. The road forks left toward Balfour Downs at the old Walgun well. There’s a battered white Holden station wagon from Jigalong with no windscreen parked on the flats just after the turnoff, a camp- fire burning nearby.